Saturday, July 22, 2006

Domocrats: cut and run

"The Democrats in Congress are having trouble coming up with a position on the War in Iraq because they are so afraid of Republican charges that they are the "cut and run" party.It's a pathetic spectacle, and they should give it up. The way I see it "cut and run" is the slogan the Democrats should adopt as their own for the 2006 election year.

Democrats: the party of cut and run.

But I'm not talking about the war.

The "cut" should be for cutting the defense budget.[]Democrats, with all that money saved from "cutting" the military budget, could actually "run" a government. They could provide funding for significantly smaller classroom sizes--the one reform that is guaranteed to improve the nation’s dismal education system. They could restore all the cuts in child welfare programs and rebuild the network of free-access community health clinics that years of Republican and Clintonian cuts have virtually eliminated. They could build a state-of-the-art flood control system to protect New Orleans, and a WPA-like program to help all New Orleans residents get back to their city. They could provide real assistance where it's needed in poor countries of the world that are suffering from lack of sanitation, clean water and basic health care.

If the Democrats came back into power and "cut" the massive tax giveaways of the Bush years out of the tax code, they could even do more. They could run the country back out of bankruptcy. They could provide real tax relief where it's needed: those working people who are barely getting by on $30-60,000 a year. They could make serious investments in public transportation to get the country out of polluting and oil-guzzling cars. They could fund research into non-polluting energy alternatives, and into developing a crash program to slow or prevent global warming.[]My message for Democrats: Cut the crap. Run like you want to win. Cut the military. Run a real government.